Welle20: I want to start with a question concerning the label, because you first were on a Major (Warner), then you were Independent and now you have your own label, so how does that feel, being on your own and being able to control everything?
Barry: You know our independence is very important to us. I think to be honest we were always meant to have our own label, but when we first started, because we’ve been together for ten years, it wasn’t really as doable and possible to be completely independent. We got offered a record deal when we were very young and we kind of got swept away and highjacked and taken from our original path from being a DIY (Do It Yourself) Punk Rock Band into being in the UK pop stars type, you know top ten, top of the tops and I don’t think that this was ever meant to happen, so to be honest with you we kind of come to the point now, where we feel like we are very much in the right place. But also in Germany and in Europe in general we don’t really have that many fans because when we were signed at Warner, the German Warners weren’t interested at all in The Futureheads, so they didn’t promote our first album at all, so we still try to make something happen here, but it’s very difficult because you know were not a new band and it makes me feel quite sad actually and regretful I’ve ever signed with Warner because if we just signed to an independent label in Germany we would quite probably have a lot of fans now, but we don’t so ...
Welle20: But probably with the new album you will succeed (TheChaos – released in April)

Barry: Well you never know, I hope so but all you can do is to play and to win fans, you know it’s good to be here.

Welle20: News and Tributes (second album) was dedicated to the people who died in Munich ...

Barry: Yes.

Welle20:What about The Chaos is that dedicated to someone, too, or what’s the reason why you’ve chosen that name?

Barry: For The Chaos? Well I wrote a song called “The Chaos” which is about our world basically being insane, like politicians are insane, the media is insane and we’re all living in chaos you know and I think one way to be happy in life is to accept it and and to become part of that energy instead of like “Right now I’m gonna go in a straight line and I’ve gotta to this on Monday, this on Tuesday this on Wednesday.” Don’t make any plans because the plans just go swwwwwwwwt in the chaos. But we did dedicate this album to Geoff’s father who passed away last year very suddenly, so there’s a little dedication in the chaos for that.

Welle20: So can chaos be somehow something positive, too?

Barry: Oh yeah, well you know entirely everything is both. Some people like the sunshine some people hate it. Chaos is good and bad dependent on how you deal with it. But if you deal with it then you’re doing something very very positive but also very very hard.

Welle20: So is that hard to deal with that, with ordinary life being rude, not nice all the time?

Barry: Oh no, never rude... What I mean is the events of life, the things that come up out of nowhere and you know it just arrives and that’s the moment when you’ve got to act and if you don’t get it right it pushes you down, if you get it right it throws you up, you know.

Welle20: That’s what basically happened to you with the band? When you were young?

Barry: Yeah I think so, but then after what happened with Warner, you know, our third album was us getting our confidence back. Basically This Is Not The World is a real recovery album whereas with The Chaos I feel like we’ve come to this point where we’ve remembered what we were all about in the first place. And our intentions and our desires were very simplistic, as the desire to play and to write and that was it, you know. I feel like what we can do now as a band is to elevate ourselves with attitude.

W20: In “Sun Goes Down” you’re singing “the sun goes down and the double life begins, it’s a one way ticket to the city of sin.” Is that a typical band life, that you always have to have two personalities?

Barry: Yeah, well that’s a song, well it’s like a vampire sex song (...) We were working with this producer and he said, guys you need to write something dark, you need to write something that sounds a bit like Billy Idol, so we came up with this kind of creeping riff. The music really influenced the lyrical theme which is about darkness versus lightness, so within the context of the album “Sun Goes Down” is the alter ego, the split personality of The Futureheads where we go and write about topics that we’re not really used to: having a double life were you go out and have loads of sex secretly ...

W20: But that could be become true...

Barry: Well, if you wanted to..... but you know I don’t know

W20: You’re at Melt!... that’s an option...

Barry: Is there loads of sex at Melt!?

W20: Yeah, possibly.

Barry: Possibly? Because when I used to go to music festivals when I was young I could never get any sex, but it’s different when you’re playing...

W20: Yeah, that’s very different, and you don’t have a tent here. That could be a problem, too... but we could lend you one of ours.

Barry: Oh really, a sex tent? Thank you!

by Lizzy Geble

W20: As I am working for a radio station I wanted to talk about the “girl with a radio heart.” How important is radio in our days for you, with the internet, myspace, everything being available in a second? What does radio mean in our days?

Barry: The thing about radio is that it really hasn’t changed and the thing that makes it different from the internet, the fundamental difference is you don’t really get the chance to choose what you hear on the radio until you find another station that you like. So I sense radio is as important as it’s ever been to the listener. For us when “Heartbeat Song” was put on the BBC A list five weeks before it came out, we’ve seen that as an entirely good thing. It was not like - if it was the 1970s this would had been number one. But if you get played on the radio it’s a good thing, if you don’t get played on the radio it’s not the end of the world. But it all ads up, you know the internet ads up to the radio and the television and gigs and you know magazines, podcasts, photoshoots. It’s all part of it but none of it is central to it. The band is the central thing and all the other things surround it, you know. But I love radio because it’s romantic.

W20: In “The Return of the Berserker” you sing, “We lie because the truth is bad / we are good but we are sad” is that still something you can say today or has that changed somehow?

Barry: Do you know what a Berserker is? The vikings had these warriors who where the most fearless warriors and they were called the Berserkers. They were given a large amounts of drugs, hallucinogenic drugs and they used to run to the enemy with a big ball and chain, just knocking everybody away. This is a Berserker. (Barry demonstrates that for us.) And at the time, that’s how I felt as a person, and “we lie because the truth is bad / we a good but we’re sad” is how I felt. I felt like I was disillusioned. I didn’t know what the truth was anymore. I didn’t know what we were wanting to do, where we were going, where we’d been and it very much summed up the moment, as the album has quite a darkness and sadness to it, because we were unhappy you know and we didn’t realize we were making a sad and angry album until after everyone heard it and said “This is a bit sad and angry isn’t it?” And yeah, I guess it is a bit sand and angry and we were not allowed to do that. You gotta make happy music ...

W20: Like Heartbeat Song...

Barry: Yeah, I love that one, It’s only four chords. I think it’s important to be able to do loads of different aspects, but for me a good album has a bit of everything … a little twist.

W20: Whats your most favourite Futureheads song, the one you identify the most with?

Barry: On the new album there are a few songs I really believe in, you know in that respect I really believe in what they’re about. “Jupiter”, the last song on the Album is an almost complicated song but it’s about the idea that a person creates their own life, we create our own bodies, we heal ourselves, we have immense passion and energy but in this current culture that we’re in people aren’t doing enough. People are too lazy, they’re not contributing anything. They think “Oh no, I can’t get on stage, I can’t do it, I’ll just watch” you know. We’re not here to watch. We’re here to do things to become something. “Jupiter” is about forgetting about your money, your cars, your home. You’re hear to experience things to create things. Meaningful things, you know “Jupiter” and “Struck Dumb.” That’s the same thing. I believe that all human beings are geniuses, real potential geniuses at something, you know, making this, or designing lights, or making that the fish don’t die in there, or looking after trees, or interviewing people, or falling in love, or building whatever the fuck that is... (points at a Melt! digger) and as I get older I realize that as I walk around life I see a lot of people just looking around waiting for something to happen, but you have to make it happen you know, and excuses like I have no time, I can’t do that won’t work ...